Author: Nick ODell 2015-07-01 22:35:36
Published on: 2015-07-01T22:35:36+00:00
The Lightning network could use a similar system to Tor's directory authority, which has nine "directory authorities." They attempt to reach nodes in the Tor network, and record whether they're available. Then, they vote among themselves to produce a directory consensus, and they all sign it. Each Lightning node keeps track of peers it has seen, and provides part of this list to anyone who asks. Directory authorities run spiders, like the one at getaddr.bitnodes.io. This could be overlaid onto the Bitcoin protocol by setting one of the service bits when the node is an active lightning processor. Your node tells all of the directory authorities it knows about itself. From a privacy perspective, active scanning (sending money through the network yourself) is much easier to secure than passive scanning (acting on an audit log of someone whose payments got stolen.) Verifying connectivity on the Lightening network is not as simple as connecting to a Tor node. We can detect when someone's internet connection goes down. We can detect (with some plumbing) when their Bitcoin node is not synchronized yet. But we can't detect the most important kind of intentional misbehavior, stealing money, without actually sending money through the network. Lightning is similar. If someone stole one out of every million payments, the directories would never notice. It seems like a non-malicious node would ask for the channel to be closed ASAP if it no longer remembered the data that would show who owned what. In the ABCD example, the only nodes that C should know about are B and D. Therefore, the routes EBCD and ABCD are equivalent from C's point of view. However, active scanning (sending money through the network yourself) is much easier to secure than passive scanning (acting on an audit log of someone whose payments got stolen). There is no such central processor though in this case to enforce the reputation of lightening nodes. Visa will kick you out of the network if you're a bank that's consistently not meeting their strict SLA's, and that keeps the network honest.
Updated on: 2023-05-23T17:55:45.964621+00:00